Peter Schjeldahl of the New Yorker Retracts His Opinion That Detroit Should Sell Their Art

Andrew LaSane is a freelance writer from South Carolina who currently resides in Brooklyn. He spends most of his life connected to the grid, obsessing over and customizing sneakers, and trying to relive the '90s.

Peter Schjeldahl, staff writer and art critic for The New Yorker, wrote a piece on the current financial status of Detroit, suggesting that the Detroit Institute of Arts sell some of their art to eliminate the debt, a stance that Stephen Colbert seems to agree with. Schjeldahl wrote that "art works have migrated throughout history" and that they "are hardly altered by inhabiting one building rather than another."

Hrag Vartanian of Hyperallergic wrote a great response, asking if Schjeldahl would "suggest that Greece sell the Parthenon to pay its crippling national debt," and pointing to various reasons why Schjeldahl's "frighteningly dumb suggestion" would not help the city of Detroit. Schjedahl has since retracted and apologized for his earlier remarks, citing Vartanian (whom he refers to as "a blogger") and acknowledging the "indefensibility" of his stance.

Moral of the story, kids: Spew bullsh*t and someone will always call you on it. As for Detroit, the obvious sentiment is that things won't improve overnight, but Motown has seen hard times before. We think they should hold out a little while longer before the fire sales begin.